that wasn't acted on here in the united states senate. and so unfortunately we are where we are, which is we're going into the election season now. we haven't dealt with the across-the-board cuts, the sequestration, haven't dealt with the issue of taxes going up on january 1 on people who created jobs in this country. and for that reason we have all these government analysts concluding the same thing and that is we are headed for a train wreck. that's what we ought to be focused on, mr. president, right now. and frankly, that's not going to happen unless we get some leadership from the president of the united states. you've got to have the president engaged, involved in these discussions if we're going to try and solve this problem. and i would hope that the leadership here in the united states senate would be a partner to that as well. i know that there are republicans here, we have tried to get votes on ways to replace the sequestration or come up with a substitute for the defense cuts that it includes. we have tried and actually gotten